


crawl back into bed

by sleepdeprivedsurgeon



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: 5 Times, Abusive Parents, Abusive Relationships, Angst, Child Abuse, Domestic Violence, Drug Addiction, Gaslighting, Hurt Juno Steel, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Juno Steel Needs a Hug, Junoverse | Juno Steel Universe, Nonbinary Character, Other, References to Addiction, Suicidal Thoughts, Wedding Planning, a lot of gaslighting, and it shows, but he doesn't get one, i'm projecting, it has come to my attention that i only write fic when i'm doing Very Badly, juno's wedding dress, we look at juno's thoughts and they are not very epic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:47:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27075982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepdeprivedsurgeon/pseuds/sleepdeprivedsurgeon
Summary: And looking at her, Juno gets what she’s saying. She’s the only one with the guts to keep him around even after he ruins everything. So where does he think he’s going? And every time, without fail, he drops the backpack and closes the distance between them, burying his face in her shoulder, getting blood on her shirt. “That’s right, Juno. I love you. Let’s get you cleaned up.”(five times Juno Steel stayed, and one time he didn't)
Relationships: Benzaiten Steel & Juno Steel, Diamond/Juno Steel, Juno Steel & Sasha Wire, Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel, Sarah Steel/trying to kill her child
Comments: 8
Kudos: 126





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> like, read this if you want to but it's not a healthy fic. title comes from "Better Son/Daughter" by Rilo Kiley.

Later, at the hospital, Ben tells Juno that their mother cried the whole time. That she was holding Juno on the kitchen floor, sobbing so hard Ben though she’d puke, until the ambulance came, and on the ride over the EMTs had to pay as much attention to her as they did to him. He said that she spent the whole night pacing the hallways, inconsolable, and Juno thinks that maybe she was just looking to see if anyone had left their painkillers within reach, but he doesn’t say it out loud. Benten knows he’s thinking it. He doesn’t dismiss the idea, but there’s disagreement written all over his face.  
It’s a nice thought, sort of. That Sarah Steel wouldn’t be able to forgive herself this time. Juno stares at the IV snaking into his hand and wishes he lived in whatever world Ben lives in, where some hysterics in the ambulance serve as an apology for putting an thirteen-year-old on that ambulance in the first place.  
There are a couple lines of big, ugly stitches crawling down the side of Juno’s face. Sarah told them he slipped and fell. He thinks it would take an idiot to think that slipping could do this— what did he fall into the edge of that countertop three times? Hard enough to leave enough blood to soak into their Oldtown apartment, permanently? He knows, he knows that someone had to have put two and two together. But if Sarah Steel’s good at one thing it’s covering her tracks. It only took one call from a guidance counselor in first grade for her to start avoiding anything Juno couldn’t hide, or, if she was just that angry, at least beating an airtight excuse into him along with the bruises. He’s a clumsy kid, and he picks fights with anyone conscious enough to throw a punch. Everyone knows it; his teachers, his neighbors, the doctors and nurses at Hyperion General. Between ruining her life and turning himself into the easiest target imaginable, it’s not like it’s a surprise he’s back for the second time this year, the scar from a laser bolt to the stomach still healing.  
Ben taps him on the arm, just enough to get his attention, not enough to send him spiraling into a panic attack. Even when it’s been a while since the last murder attempt, he doesn’t handle touch very well. All it takes to set him off normally is a bump in the lunch line at school, or Sasha grabbing his arm to get him to move faster. But now, when it’s been less than a day since Sarah last tried to collect the debt she was owed… the nurses hadn’t been able to check his stitches since he woke up because he started hyperventilating the second they got within a ten-foot radius.  
“What do you want?” Juno asks, voice scratching against the inside of his throat. They’d said he screamed less than his mother. They said that as a joke, about how good the meds they had him on were, but it hadn’t been funny.  
“I bet it’s gonna leave a cool scar.”  
“Yeah. Maybe.” That’s how everyone tells the difference between the two of them. Benten’s the one with the smile, and Juno’s the one with the black eye or two, depending on the day. “People are gonna be asking how I got it forever, though.”  
“Lie, then.”  
“I’m not a good liar,” he mutters.  
Ben stares at the door leading out to the hospital hallway like he thinks if he looks hard enough, he’ll be able to see through it. Both of them do that a lot, usually at home. They both know it takes twenty-seven steps for Sarah Steel to get from the front door to their bedroom. “Juno, listen.”  
“I got nothing better to do.”  
“I could go tell someone what happened.”  
“Really?”  
“Got a good feeling that everyone here already knows, and can’t do anything about it because we both keep saying Ma’s telling the truth. People’ve been asking me pointed questions about her since I got here. All I’d have to do is answer one of them.”  
Juno thinks about it, running his fingers along the rough hospital blanket. It had always been an option, sure, but neither of them had ever given it any serious thought. Their mom had lied her way out of enough situations that it had always seemed a little pointless, and they knew that if she found out they’d told someone— which she’d proven herself scarily good at doing, given how fast she found out that Mick and Sasha knew how the Steel household operated— Juno would be dead before anyone could do anything about it. Maybe Ben would make it out alive, but then there was the mess of Hyperion CPS.  
If they snitched here, though, she wouldn’t be able to touch them. She’d probably leave the building in handcuffs, and Juno and Benten would see her at the trial and then hopefully never again. Home free. Well, besides telling the whole story over again to the cops, and surviving the next five years of their life until they could leave whatever home they were put in and make it on their own. Besides, that, home free. It’s a nice thought, sort of.  
“You in there, Super-Steel?”  
“Yeah, just thinking.”  
Sometimes, when she walks in on Juno shoving his things into his backpack, blood still pouring out his nose, Sarah will stand in the bedroom doorway, an arm on each side of the frame, and give him a smile so sad you’d think she was in mourning. “Come on, Juno, where do you think you’re going?” she’ll say, surveying the mess he’s made of the room. “Where are you going to go? I’m all you’ve got, little monster.” She’ll kneel down and hold out her arms, and the hands at the end of them will be still and quiet for the first time all night. “I’m all you’ve got.” You can tell what she’s mourning, then: it’s the life she would’ve had if Juno had never been born, what she could’ve had if she hadn’t tied her whole self up in someone like him. And looking at her, Juno gets what she’s saying. She’s the only one with the guts to keep him around even after he ruins everything. So where does he think he’s going? And every time, without fail, he drops the backpack and closes the distance between them, burying his face in her shoulder, getting blood on her shirt. “That’s right, Juno. I love you. Let’s get you cleaned up.”  
If Benten walks out that door, finds the nearest nurse and spills the Steels’ collective guts, where is he going to go? Ben would find a place easy; he’s all smiles and thank yous and jokes. People make room for people like Ben. Even Sarah makes room for him: the birthday gifts he has to share with Juno in secret, and the rides to dance practice (however occasional they might be). Ben’s going to be fine no matter what they do, Juno’s confident in that. Ben’s going to make it out alive, and maybe even in one piece.  
But Juno? No matter how good he tries to be, Juno Steel comes with warnings. Anger issues, violent outbursts, whatever you want to call it. When he smiles, it’s fake, and everybody knows it. He’s blunt and usually that hurts people. There’s never enough space for him and all his warnings, and he makes up for this by making space, by whatever means necessary. He’s selfish, and he ruins the lives of the people around him.  
That means there’s more reasons to stay than to go. Because Sarah Steel deserves having her life ruined, having to keep putting up with him. And Juno deserves getting his head slammed against the kitchen counter every once in a while. Ben doesn’t deserve anything except a ticket out of Oldtown, but he’s not getting that even if he tells someone about Ma.  
“I don’t think we should do it.”  
“Are you serious?”  
Juno swallows hard. “Yeah.”  
“You really wanna go home.” Ben looks like he might hit something. Which is to say he looks even more like his brother than usual.  
“Hey, I know it ain’t much, but with a little redecorating—”  
“Juno, she’s gonna kill you.”  
“Maybe not. So far she’s been pretty bad at it.”  
“But she’s gonna really snap eventually, you— oh.”  
“What?”  
“You know that, don’t you? Like, you’re counting on it?”  
They look at each other for a long time. It’s a subject they hardly ever touch, and one they’ve never brought up outside their bedroom, late at night or early in the morning, when their apartment became less of a collection of rooms and more of a collection of objects Juno could use to make Sarah’s job a little easier: the pills in the kitchen, the scissors on his desk, the door to the building’s roof that was always unlocked. It’s a conversation that never ends well, for either of them.  
“That’s not what I was thinking about. Honest.”  
“You’re thinking about it now.”  
“You brought it up.” Juno turns away and sluggishly pulls his knees to his chest. It’s not that he wishes he were dead, but he sure as hell doesn’t want to live forever.  
“I… fine. You’re concussed, so I probably shouldn’t be listening to you, but I get it. I won’t tell anyone this time,” Ben says, his voice low and hard, putting a little too much emphasis on the ‘this time.’  
“Okay.”  
“So we’re going home. We’re staying.”  
Juno reaches up and runs a hand along the stitches.  
“You’re not supposed to do that.”  
“I don’t care.”


	2. Chapter 2

Juno starts wearing makeup when he’s fourteen. He likes it; he likes how it changes him just unrecognizable enough that he can choose whether or not to see himself in the mirror, he likes how it becomes another way to tell him and Benten apart, and he likes putting it on, standing on his tiptoes in front of the school bathroom’s mirror every morning. Sasha meets him there, hands him a plastic bag full of almost-empty lipstick tubes and probably-expired concealer, and sits on the floor until he’s done. It’s not that his mom doesn’t approve, or anything; sometimes she even compliments him before she starts screaming. But Juno understands that the only things he can keep in the house are things he’s okay with losing, things he won’t miss when they’re taken from him. So for the last three years, he’s left his makeup with Sasha and dragged Ben to school a few minutes earlier every morning.   
Today, like most days, it’s not just to make him look prettier. He doesn’t remember if this is why he started, but now, painting over the finger-shaped bruises on his neck and the scratches on the side of his face, he sure as hell wouldn’t be surprised. Everyone at Oldtown High knows he’s a fuckup, but there’s a big difference between knowing something and seeing it written all over someone’s face. Juno doesn’t care what people know about him, not really, but he refuses to look the part. “Done,” he says, turning to face Sasha. “Good?”  
“Yeah, you look fine.” Sasha closes her textbook and taps her fingers on it, nervously looking around at the stall doors falling off their hinges and the sinks that only work half the time.  
“Hey, you can tell me if it’s ugly. I can take it.”  
“It’s not that. It’s… I know I’ve said it before, but you can always come stay with me. If it— she— gets any worse, I mean. Ben, too. Both of you.I talked to my parents. There’s still an extra bed in my room.”  
Juno clenches his fist, running his thumb along the scars on his knuckles, the byproduct of one too many fists through the nearest object, or into the nearest stomach. “It’s all just leftover from that guy outside the bar last night, you know. It wasn’t her.”  
“Not this time. But christ, Juno, you come in here every morning with shit on your face, and on the rare occasion you don’t, you’re limping or something. You’ve gotta, I don’t know, you’ve gotta get sick of it sometimes.”  
“I was sick of it when I was six. I’m used to it now.” He slides down to sit next to Sasha.  
“That’s not a good thing.” Her voice sounds strained, somehow.  
Juno just shrugs and picks at a scab on his knee. He still hasn’t figured out a way to explain himself that doesn’t sound, well, horrible. Masochistic. Like the poster child for Stockholm Syndrome. That’s not what it is, though. First of all, he does it to himself. He sits in school all day picking fights with his teachers, spends all afternoon picking fights with his friends, and then he goes home and fucks up just enough to keep Sarah Steel going at him well into the night. Every fight he picks, he loses. Even if he comes out on top, even if at the end of the day the other guy lost more blood and ended up on the floor, Juno’s still the loser. Because all he did was prove everyone right, prove that he inherited all his mother’s anger and none of her genius, that it’s only a matter of time before he graduates from alcohol to something harder, and that all he’s going to amount to is one of those stories people tell on the fire escapes, ‘oh, remember Juno Steel, poor kid, he got what was coming to him, though.’   
Long story short, he’s not sick of it. He used to be. And after that he was just sick for a while, all shaking hands and upset stomach, walking around in a feverish haze that only lifted long enough for him to count the sound of twenty-seven footsteps from the front door to his bedroom. Now he’s not much of anything. Now he’s just a rotation of black eyes and cracked ribs, and frankly, that’s okay. That’s what he’s supposed to be, at least.  
“You’d get sick of me if we lived together,” Juno says dryly.  
“I’m already sick of you, so you don’t need to worry about that part.”  
“I…” he tears the scab off, presses his thumb against the cut to stop the blood. “I just don’t think it’s a good idea right now.” By the time anyone would be able to find someone willing to take him, he’d have aged out of the system, and all the effort would’ve been pointless. Besides, he’s in it so deep that he thinks he probably couldn't live in a world where he’s not constantly ducking a punch. Like those videos from Earth where they’d take things that lived deep underwater and bring them up to the surface; they couldn’t stand the lack of pressure, and they exploded, or shattered, or whatever. That’s what would happen to him. And the way Juno sees it, his two options are either make sure it never happens, or make sure it happens far away from anyone who cares about him. It’s something he’d have to figure out on his own. He couldn’t do that if he had to eat dinner with the Wire family every night.  
“Sure. You know more about your life than I do. I’m just saying it’s an option.”  
“Yeah. Thank you.”  
They walk to class together. No one can see the bruises on Juno’s neck, dark purple and blue. He’s got to find someone to replace them before they turn an ugly shade of green.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leave a comment if you'd like! and feel free to come hang out on lonely-corvid.tumblr.com


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the chapter that the non-con warning is for! please proceed with caution!

Juno’s been living with Diamond for two months, and dating them for five, and he spends most of his time waiting for the other shoe to drop. He loves them, yeah, but there’s just something about them— or, more likely, something about himself— that keeps him on edge whenever they’re around. Maybe he’s just only able to love people who make him nervous, or maybe people make him nervous because he loves them. Either way, the second Diamond walks through the apartment door, Juno’s counting the exits. Even on nights like tonight, when they slip through the door with takeout in one hand and flowers in the other, all perfect smile and bright eyes, looking at Juno like he’s exactly what they want to come home to every night. Hell, he probably is, but that’s not necessarily a good thing.  
They set the takeout on the kitchen counter and bring the flowers to Juno. The sight of them approaching him, fast and direct, towering over him between his position on the couch and their four-inch heels, is enough to send him running for the door, or reaching for the gun on the coffee table. But he loves Diamond. And they love him. So he grits his teeth and smiles.  
“What’s the occasion?” he asks. They’re beautiful flowers. He stares at them, fidgets with the cellophane holding them together. He’s always been a little wary of gifts— it’s hard not to be, after you spend eighteen years with Sarah Steel.   
“No occasion. Technically, they’re evidence, but I’m sure no one will care that they’re gone.”  
“Evidence for what?”  
“Triple homicide.”  
“Romantic,” Juno says with a careful laugh. They laugh, too, and take the flowers back, tossing them to the other side of the couch. They guide Juno’s hands towards their face, moving to straddle him. They press a kiss into a small scar on his jawline. They’re too close, way too close. And they’re just going to keep getting closer. Juno’s barely breathing, between the gift and the unexpected touch. Diamond never warns him first, and they move so fast that by the time he thinks to ask them to stop it’s too late. On most days, he’ll just lie back and let it happen, because this is part of loving someone, isn’t it? It’s about compromise, giving and taking. Juno takes enough for the both of them, so sometimes he’s gotta give.  
Tonight, though, it’s too much. Diamond’s too close. He pushes them and they pull away, sitting back on Juno’s knees. God, they’re beautiful. How fucked up does a person have to be to pass up someone like Diamond— silver and caramel and sharp-edged Diamond?  
“Can we just, uh, should we maybe eat dinner first?”  
They laugh again and roll their eyes. “Dinner can wait, baby.” They start leaning in again, but Juno stops them with a hand on their shoulder.  
“Di, I don’t really want to—”  
“Well, I do.”   
Before he can say anything else, they’re kissing him; perfect lips blocking any more protests, perfect hands spreading over his arms, his chest, his hips. They find their way to the zipper on the back of his dress and pull, hard enough that he thinks it might’ve broken. It’s halfway off by the time he registers the movement of the fabric. This whole time, he doesn’t know where his own hands are. He knows Diamond’s expecting him to be doing something, too, pulling them closer or unbuttoning their uniform, but he can’t find his way back into his body, and he’s not sure he wants to. Even when they give him his mouth back, and turn their attention to his neck and collarbones, it takes him a few minutes to remember how to speak.  
“Can you just stop, please, just for a—”  
“You talk to much, J.” Their voice and breath are hot in his ear. Too hot. They press themself even closer against him. “Just shut the fuck up.”  
So he… does. He shuts the fuck up. When Diamond pulls the two of them off the couch and towards the bedroom, he stays quiet. He lets them put their hands wherever they want. He lets them guide his own hands wherever they want. They’re above him and below him, on every side of him and closing in fast, and he doesn’t say shit. Because why would he? He loves them. This is part of loving someone. He takes too much, and now he’s giving. He’s giving, and Diamond’s taking, and he’s staying quiet for the first time in his goddamn life. His body, wherever it is and whoever it belongs to, gives Diamond whatever they want, turning purple where they sucked bruises into his skin, turning red where they drag their nails down his back.   
Diamond moves fast. For once, this works to Juno’s advantage. It’s over quickly, at least he assumes; lying there completely outside of reality, he doesn’t have a great grasp on the passage of time. But eventually, he’s alone on the bed, and the cheap light fixture on the ceiling is coming into focus. He’s shivering, and he can’t feel his limbs, but it’s over. Across the room, Diamond is taking off their makeup. “Dinner’s ready whenever you are,” they say, smiling at him through the mirror. It’s a beautiful smile. Juno never wants to see it again. Well, that’s not true— he loves them, of course he wants to keep looking at them. It’s just that right now it’s making him nauseous.   
“‘M not hungry,” he says, his voice small and distant, like it’s coming through a closed door.   
“I know that’s not true.” They pick Juno’s dress up off the floor and carry it over to the bed. “You’re always starving after we—”  
“Don’t touch me.” He turns away from them and curls in on himself, a tiny thing in the middle of a tiny apartment in a massive city.  
Diamond clicks their tongue against their teeth and cards their fingers through his hair. Even though they’re ignoring him, the motion helps pull him back to reality. They always seem to know how to calm Juno down after they’ve wound him up, or bring him back after they’ve thrown him out. “Come on, baby, don’t do this. You always do this.”  
Does he? He can’t remember. “I just…” suddenly he remembers the flowers, sitting abandoned back in the living room. “I didn’t want to. You don’t listen to me.”  
“Relationships come with sacrifices, J. You love me, don’t you?”  
“Of course I do, but—”  
“I do things for you all the time. I pay the rent for this place. I take care of you whenever you’re freaking out, which, I mean, is a lot of the time. I don’t always want to, but I do it, because I love you. Do you get it?”  
“Yeah. Sorry.” They’re right. They’re always right.   
Diamond lays down next to him, wrapping their arms around him. “Come have dinner, baby. Don’t check out for the night like you always do. Stay with me.”  
What Juno wants to do is sit in the shower until the water’s been running cold for hours, until Diamond’s asleep, and then go to the bar down the street and drink his weight in the strongest stuff they have. What he wants is to leave, to start running and not stop until he’s out of Hyperion, until he’s somewhere where no one’s ever heard his name. But what he wants isn’t important right now, because Diamond’s right; he takes too much. Too much space and too much attention. So he stays. He puts the dress back on, ignoring the new tear in the back, and he follows Diamond out of the room.  
He doesn’t think he likes being in love very much.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i now present: me having another "i changed my hair and now i have absolutely no connection to my physical form" moment but pretending it's juno steel getting married

After their first fight, Juno went out and bought a first aid kit to keep in the bathroom cabinet. He didn’t feel anything other than a dull resignation; this is just how people treated him, no use in denying it. This is just what happens to people who are small enough to tower over and talk so much that the only way to shut them up is a quick backhand to the mouth. He carried it through the apartment, his split lip still bleeding a little, and silently shoved it onto a shelf he could reach, among all of Diamond’s stuff. Maybe Diamond had taken that as Juno giving them permission. Maybe they were right. Regardless, he runs out of antiseptic about once a month. The cashier at the pharmacy knows more about Juno’s domestic life than any of his coworkers, with the exception of Rita. She just kept asking until he had to tell her the truth. She’s known for months, and Juno doesn’t care, because whoever she tells won’t believe her. Diamond and Juno are the stars of the HCPD: the precinct’s best detective and the best sharpshooter the city’s ever seen. They’re the two brightest gears in the whole fucked-up, run-down machine. They love each other, openly, and they look good doing it. No one would ever believe that there’s trouble in paradise. And even if someone did, they’d have no way to prove it. Nothing but a couple bruises on Juno that could easily be chalked up to side effects of his job, and the word of a secretary nobody took seriously.  
When they’d gotten engaged the precinct had exploded. Finally, one good goddamn thing happens in the HCPD. Diamond proposed on a Thursday, and Juno couldn’t find a good enough reason to say no, so on Friday everyone went out to celebrate. He’d gotten drunk enough that even Hijikata had been worried. And now, four months later, the wedding’s getting closer every day and people still won’t shut up about it. If it were up to Juno, they’d have just gone to the courthouse the same night he’d said yes, but he knows the wedding has nothing to do with the contract. All it is, is Diamond showing off, their face and Juno’s. It’s Diamond saying, look at us, look at the good thing we’ve got going.  
Juno can’t say for sure, but he’s also pretty sure they’re getting married so it’ll be harder for him to leave. It’s not like he’d ever leave, he loves them, but they’ve been paranoid about it, lately, and a wedding seems like a good solution.  
The dress Diamond asks him to try on in the store is… too much. It’s flashy. The bodice is too tight, and it shows too much skin. It’s great if you’re trying to show off, look at us, look at the good thing we have, but it makes Juno want to climb out of his skin and leave it on the dressing room floor. He tries it on, though— what else is he going to do? They didn’t like any of the options he picked out, and they’re the one who proposed, and their family is paying for it all, so he owes them this much.  
“Come out and let us see!” the salesperson calls.  
“In a minute.”  
Avoiding looking in the mirror is a habit so ingrained that he doesn’t even look at windows if there’s a chance he’ll catch his reflection. But this time he forces himself to look, and…   
He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to look like. He doesn’t know what Juno Steel, bride-to-be, should look like— he doesn’t know what Juno Steel should look like, period. But he thinks, it can’t be this. He’s drowning in white fabric and lace. He knows he’s lost some weight since Benten died, but he didn’t know it showed so badly. Diamond said he’d look better if he grew his hair out (“cover up some of that shit on your face,” they’d said, tracing a finger over the scars on his temple), and maybe he does look better, but he sure as hell doesn’t look like himself. Maybe he’s not supposed to, though. There’s finger-shaped bruises snaking up his arms, and a gash on his chin that’s just starting to heal. With a wave of nausea, he realizes that he can’t remember the last time he was completely uninjured. That’s what he gets, he guesses, when he goes straight from Sarah’s apartment into the police academy housing, and then moves in with Diamond to avoid paying Hyperion rent.  
“Come on, baby, I wanna see.”  
Juno takes a shaky breath and plasters a smile on his face. Who gives a shit what he looks like? He barely pays attention to it, anyway. He steps out of the dressing room.  
“It’s beautiful, J. It’s perfect.”  
“I don’t think I’ll be wearing combat boots to the ceremony, but—”  
“Come here.”  
Juno closes the distance between them, lets them grab his shoulders and spin him around. They’re happy. That means he’s happy; that’s what love is.   
“Do you like it?” they ask, eyes wide and earnest. It’s so honest that he can’t help but think that maybe they wouldn’t get mad if he took the smile off, matched their honesty and told them he couldn’t do this, not until he feels more like himself. He knows they’re part of the problem, though, and he knows the only way to fix it is leave the only home he has, the only person who’s ever going to love him. He too scared and stupid to make it on his own, so he’s going to have to make some sacrifices. Minor ones, in the grand scheme of things.  
“I love it,” he replies, and he hopes it looks like he’s glowing.   
Diamond kisses them. Hard. “God, I can’t wait. I can’t believe I’m gonna marry you.”  
“Neither can I,” he says softly.  
The salesperson stays quiet through all of this, and through the rest of the transaction. Juno guesses the enthusiasm from earlier was just retail-worker bullshit. On the way out, though, they speak up again.  
“Mr. Steel, come here a minute.”  
“What is it?” Diamond asks.  
“Oh, nothing, just some advice for the bride.” They’re smiling, wide and bright. Diamond shrugs and walks out of the store, and the second they’re gone the salesperson is grabbing Juno’s hands, holding them between the two of them, white-knuckled.  
“Look, I appreciate it, but I don’t think I really need—”  
“Is your fiance… treating you well? I mean, are you safe?”  
Juno’s heart drops into his stomach and his stomach drops to the floor. Chain reaction. He blinks “What the hell are you talking about?”  
“I just saw your arms, when you were trying the dress on, and well, it wouldn’t be the first time. I could report it, if you’d like.”  
“Look, I’m a cop. We both work for the HCPD.” He rips himself away from their grip and starts toward the door. He can’t get out of there fast enough; the walls will start closing in at any second.  
“So, what, you’re saying you got those bruises on the job?”  
Juno turns back for a moment and gives them a thin smile. “I’m saying no one you could report it to is gonna believe you. Have a nice day.”  
Diamond is waiting on the sidewalk, their heels tapping anxiously against the concrete. “What’d they tell you?”  
“Just the same bullshit I’ve been hearing from everyone.” He pulls his sleeves down past his wrist.  
“Didn’t look like bullshit.”  
“Well, it was.”  
“Were they flirting with you?”  
“The person who just sold me a goddamn wedding dress? No, they weren’t. Jesus, Diamond, you’re—”  
“Don’t you dare call me paranoid again.”  
Juno settles into the rhythm of their fight. At least he’s wearing his own clothes again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope you're liking the story so far:) leave a comment if you'd like!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i changed my mind about what this chapter is about so i edited the tags, please double-check them before reading!  
> also please ignore the fact that the beginning of this chapter is basically ripped straight from the fight club novel oops

He wakes up in a dark corner of the Kanagawa mansion, next to someone he barely recognizes. He wakes up on the floor of a club in Oldtown, to the owner telling him he’s gotta go, they closed hours ago. He wakes up in his own bathtub, drenched in sweat. The days blur together, sliding colors and laughter that goes on a little longer than it’s supposed to. Wherever he wakes up, there’s always something to hold off the inevitable crash within arm’s reach: a couple pills left in the medicine cabinet, or a half-empty bottle on the bedside table. Juno’s gotten pretty good at it, now that he doesn’t have a job to wake up for or a fiance to come home to. He doesn’t remember the last time he was sober— he doesn’t remember the last time he was a hundred percent sure what day of the week it is. He considers that a good thing.  
Technically, he’s a private eye now. But at the moment, no one seems to want to hire a guy so crazy even the HCPD didn’t want him, the lady whose most recent claim to fame is being the one who puked his guts out of the Kanagawa limo’s window onto a busy martian street. He doesn’t blame anyone for avoiding him; he’s grateful, because he couldn’t solve his way out of his own apartment in the state he’s in.  
He doesn’t care. That’s always been his problem; he cares too goddamn much. His mom tried to kill him and he cared too much about surviving it. His fiance cheated and he was ready to stay, he loved them so much. Objectively he was better off without them, but he cared enough to ignore that, and now he’s got an ugly, unused wedding dress taking up space in his closet and a scar spanning the bridge of his nose, another reason not to look in the mirror. His brother died and he missed a full month of living because he cared so much he couldn’t get out of bed. Diamond had told him he was overreacting, and as always, Diamond had been right. It took him twenty-five years, but he’s finally figured out how to stop feeling scared: he just needs to stop giving a shit. Luckily, there’s plenty of ways to make that happen. Looking out at the world from the backseat of his own brain, through the buzz of whatever’s just kicked in, it almost looks like a place he could live in.   
He wakes up in Mick Mercury’s living room, the sound of some paid-programming stream ringing in the background. It’s creeping up on him, slowly but surely: the crash. His head is pounding like it’s trying to knock his eyes out of his skull. If he still cared, he’d be worried about the state Mick found him in, worried about the inconvenience he’s causing, being here like this. Good thing he doesn’t give a shit anymore. Next to Juno is Mick, sitting on the floor with his eyes glued to the stream; sitting next to Mick is a half-eaten pizza. Just the sight of it makes Juno’s stomach churn, start oozing up into his throat. He sits up with a groan and starts calculating how fast he can make it to the bathroom door across the room.  
“Good morning,” Mick says with his mouth full.  
“What…” he doesn’t know how to even start narrowing down the amount of things he should be asking. “... time is it?”  
“Four-fifteen. Technically morning.”  
“Oh.” He doesn’t know what he thought that was going to help with, but it wasn’t much. Carefully, he stands up. The room only spins a little bit. That’s a win in his book.  
“You had us pretty worried for a while there, J.”  
Juno doesn’t recognize the tone in Mick’s voice. He shrugs it off and picks his way through the mess of the room. “Who’s ‘us’?”  
“Rita said you called her and sounded… pretty out of it. Like, more than usual, which is saying a lot, no offense. She picked you up and then she drove you to my place, because I’ve got more, you know, experience in this department.”  
“What, dealing with my bullshit?”  
“No, overdoses. But it didn’t seem, like, hospital-worthy, so we decided to let you sleep it off. Rita left an hour ago.”  
“It’s never hospital-worthy, don’t worry,” Juno makes it to the bathroom door and leans against it, pressing his forehead against the cold drywall. It feels nice. He doesn’t care, really, but it feels nice.  
Mick lets out a long sigh. “JJ, you’ve been to the ER twice in the last month.”  
Really? He doesn’t remember. That’s not surprising, though; even when he tries he can’t pin down any specific memories after he got fired, and it’s pretty spotty leading up to that, too. “Oh. Well, it couldn’t’ve been that bad if I don’t remember.”  
“You wouldn’t remember. Both times you managed to hide some shit in your pocket or something and by the time you checked yourself out you were wasted again.”  
“Really? That’s hilarious.”  
“It really isn’t.”  
“No, c’mon, admit it. That’s so fucking funny— hold that thought.” Bile rushes into his mouth. He slams the door open and drops in front of the toilet, head reeling from the sudden movement. Not much comes out. When was the last time he ate anything? He doesn’t know. At any rate, he’s not about to eat anything on an empty stomach; Mick has to have something around. The guy hasn’t cleaned out his apartment since he moved in, there’s gotta be some old prescriptions hiding somewhere. He wipes his mouth on his sleeve— it’s not even his shirt, he doesn’t even know who gave it to him, so who cares— and kicks the cupboard under the sink open.  
Something else kicks it closed before he can get a good look inside. Mick is standing in the doorway, looking more serious than Juno’s ever seen him, his face set in stone, his hands perfectly still.  
“Fucking hell, Juno.”  
Juno blinks at the floor a few times. It’s the first time Mick’s used his full name since they met each other, probably. “Wh-what’s the problem?”  
“You’re gonna kill yourself if you keep going like this.”  
It’s not funny, and part of him knows it, but it’s a small part, and the majority of him is laughing all of a sudden, so hard he can hardly breathe. Because, shit, that’s a win-win situation if Juno’s ever seen one. He falls onto his back, still laughing, head pressed against the tile floor and arms wrapped around his stomach. Mick stands over him. He’s fighting a losing battle, and both of them know it. Both of them can’t help wanting to know how it plays out, though.  
“I’m serious, JJ.”  
“Mick, if I was gonna kill myself, I would’ve done it by now, don’t you think?”  
“Don’t think I didn’t think about that.” He sits down next to Juno. The bathroom’s too small for two adults, really, so they barely fit in there with each other. “Look, Rita found a rehab place. She’s coming back in the morning— well, in a couple hours— and… and you’re going.”  
“Like hell I’m going.”  
Mick sighs and takes his eyes off Juno for the first time, staring straight ahead at the cabinet door instead. “D’you remember when we were younger, before you went off to cop school, and you said if you weren’t sober by the time you turned twenty, I was supposed to make you do it?”  
“No.”  
“Of course you don’t, you were high off your ass when you said it. The point is, you’re twenty-five.”  
“I tried.” Juno’s voice sounds far away from himself. He can feel his heart beating in his fingers. The crash is coming, and he’s gotta find a way to stop it.  
“I know you tried. And you were doing good, and honestly, after everything with your job and Di— uh, the wedding, I don’t blame you. But you’ve gotta try again, okay?”  
Juno doesn’t answer. He’s not going back to the land of the living, not for anything, but especially not for a promise he made in high school. In high school he thought him and all his friends were gonna leave Oldtown behind and never think about it again. He thought he was gonna shoot his way to the top of the HCPD and stay there. He’d been an idiot, and looking back, the best thing he could’ve done for his future would’ve been to jump off the roof off his apartment building instead of letting Ben and Sasha talk him down from the edge. Mercury’s right; he is going to die if he keeps it up. But the thing is, with all the distant, muffled pleasure that comes with getting high and staying high, is that dying is just a thing that happens. He’s not looking forward to it, exactly, but he sure as hell isn’t going to do anything about how fast he’s moving towards it. He doesn’t care. And if he waits around for Rita, gets in the car with her and spends the next few weeks in withdrawal, he’ll start caring. He likes the view from the backseat too much for any of that.  
Eventually, Mick picks himself up off the floor and leaves, muttering something about getting a few hours of sleep and how Juno could help himself to any of the food in the house, how he should please eat something, how you look worse than you did in school, JJ. Juno waits until he hears his breathing slow into quiet snores on the couch. Then, he sifts through the cupboard until he finds a few half-empty prescriptions— all of them close to expiration, but he’ll take what he can get. He shoves them in his pocket and climbs onto the fire escape. On the street, he catches a cab out of Oldtown and heads to the bar by his old office that stays open twenty-four hours and doesn’t stop serving when they think you’re too drunk.  
For a second he thinks, maybe he should feel bad about it. But he doesn’t feel much of anything.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am once again going insane over the final resting place...... ouch

They’re lying in bed together. This is the first time that Juno can remember that he and the other person both stuck around when they were done. When he was with Diamond, either they left immediately to clean up and get some work done, or Juno would go stand in the shower until he felt okay again, fingernails digging into his forearms. After that he’d never committed to anything beyond the occasional one-night stand that felt more like a transaction than anything else, taking off as little clothing as possible, leaving as soon as he could. It was different with Nureyev, though; so different that they had to stop a few times so that Juno could find his bearings again. They took it slow, and quiet, and gentle, and all the other things that they didn’t take anywhere else, or with anyone else. Nureyev doesn’t cut him off or hold him down, he gives more than he takes, and now he’s lying there tracing lazy circles onto Juno’s palm like he doesn’t have anywhere better to be.  
It’s something Juno would like to get used to. It’s something he doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to.  
He looks out the window. It’s dark outside— at least, it’s as dark as Hyperion City ever gets. There’s always the streetlights and headlights and neon, but Juno doesn’t think he’d like looking into pitch blackness. When you can’t see anything in front of you there’s no way to know where you are. He’ll have to get used to it, though, since he’s leaving with Nureyev in the morning. Isn’t he? Of course he is. This is what he wants: a way out of the city, and a life with the man lying next to him. He turns to look at him, Peter Nureyev, the nameless thief. He’s all sharp lines and sharp teeth, but he’s willing to put all of that away for Juno, and he has; he’s looking up at him, half-asleep, with an expression softer than anything Juno’s ever seen on a person’s face. It scares Juno more than anything else. He’s looking at him the way he imagines other people get to look at each other. People who deserve it, people who know they’re going to live long lives and don’t want to do anything to shorten them. People who aren’t the two of them.   
Nureyev breaks the silence, struggling to keep his eyes open. “Call me a fool if you like but… I think… I may have fallen in love with you.”  
All of a sudden Juno knows. By the time Peter wakes up in the morning he’ll be halfway across the city, back in his office, and well on his way to emptying the liquor stash he keeps hidden in the bottom drawer of his desk. What the hell was he thinking? That he’d just follow an almost-stranger into the big pitch-blackness of space and see what happens? He trusts Nureyev. Maybe he even loves Nureyev. And he knows that the feeling’s mutual— that no matter how bad his bad days are, or how long it takes for him to get used to anyone treating him gently, Nureyev won’t care. He’ll stay right there, fingers with no fingerprints drawing lines up and down Juno’s arm, skimming over the scars. Like he doesn’t have anywhere better to be.  
The problem is, he does. Juno doesn’t know himself very well, but he knows he burns through people like matches. Loving him means talking him down from ledge after ledge, pulling him up from rock bottom after rock bottom. People either get tired of it— he can’t blame them— or they don’t, and he doesn’t know which one is worse. He can’t stand the idea of watching Nureyev realize what he signed up for, getting angry or getting distant or just plain leaving. But he also can’t watch himself take everything Nureyev has to give, take advantage of all his patience. So there’s really only one thing he could do.  
“If you’re a fool, that makes two of us,” Juno says. His voice comes out different than it usually does. Nicer.  
Nureyev laughs against his chest. He’s asleep in the next five minutes, but Juno can’t quite bring himself to leave. Instead, he watches him sleep for a few hours. He’s never watched someone sleep before— not like this, anyway. There had been nights when he’d sit up next to Diamond, every muscle tense, wondering if the sounds of him sneaking out the fire escape would wake them up; and there had been nights when he stood guard over his brother. But those were nothing like this: memorizing all the lines he can see of Nureyev’s face in the half-light, and learning the rhythm of his chest rising and falling. Being next to someone and not keeping track of their hands and their potential to turn into fists.   
He allows himself time to do this. He doesn’t deserve it, but he does it anyway. Then, when he sees the lights start to turn on in the building across the street, he pulls away. It hurts— a full-body hurt that pulls at his fingertips. Getting dressed is hard and leaving the hotel key card on the bedside table is harder. Someone’s gotta do it, though. He leans over and kisses Nureyev’s hairline, light enough that it won’t wake him up.  
And then he leaves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading! i'm planning on posting more penumbra fic soon, so keep an eye out :D also leave a comment if you'd like, i love reading them!!!


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